"Commentary from P.M. Carpenter"

October 30, 2012

Whistling through the torrent

In his headline, Wonkblog's Brad Plumer answers a curiously little-asked question as Mother Nature swamps the East Coast: "Yes, Hurricane Sandy is a good reason to worry about climate change."

But heaven forfend we should worry about it at the federal level, let alone on a global plane. Let's first send such worries--if indeed there's even cause for worry--back to the states. Yes, that’s the right direction. And if we can go even further and send it back to the private sector, that’s even better.

Meanwhile,

In the mid-Atlantic region, the coastal seas have risen about eight inches since 1900....

What’s more, sea-level rise is expected to accelerate in the decades ahead--an additional two to seven feet by 2100.... [I]t is "very likely" that extreme coastal flooding during storms will become far more common in the future as a result. And that’s a big problem for cities such as New York.

Yeah, so what? The moral thing to do, in my view, is for us to continue to rack up higher and higher seas and pass them on to our kids, knowing full well that we’ll all be dead and gone before the rising tides are stemmed. It makes perfect sense.

Comments

In his headline, Wonkblog's Brad Plumer answers a curiously little-asked question as Mother Nature swamps the East Coast: "Yes, Hurricane Sandy is a good reason to worry about climate change."

But heaven forfend we should worry about it at the federal level, let alone on a global plane. Let's first send such worries--if indeed there's even cause for worry--back to the states. Yes, that’s the right direction. And if we can go even further and send it back to the private sector, that’s even better.

Meanwhile,

In the mid-Atlantic region, the coastal seas have risen about eight inches since 1900....

What’s more, sea-level rise is expected to accelerate in the decades ahead--an additional two to seven feet by 2100.... [I]t is "very likely" that extreme coastal flooding during storms will become far more common in the future as a result. And that’s a big problem for cities such as New York.

Yeah, so what? The moral thing to do, in my view, is for us to continue to rack up higher and higher seas and pass them on to our kids, knowing full well that we’ll all be dead and gone before the rising tides are stemmed. It makes perfect sense.